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Rochester South and Horsted ward by-election

We had a local election yesterday. It came about due to the resignation of our local councillor John Ward. John resigned as a reaction to the criticism (Daily Mail, Telegraph, Mirror, Kent Online) there was after he published and subsequently deleted the following post from his blog –

What You Probably Won’t Read in the PressPublished by John M Ward at 14:04 Saturday, 15 March 2008

One side of the Shannon Matthews story you are unlikely to read in the mainstream Press is what the police themselves know about this sorry tale. “Inspector Gadget” has it HERE. Note the “seven children” part in particular, and the implicit reasons for that…

This is just another example of “Breakdown Britain”. I think there is a case for compulsory sterilisation of all those who have had a second (or third, or whatever) child while living off State hand-outs. It would take a lot of pressures off all concerned, protect the youngsters themselves to some degree, and remove the incentive to “breed for greed” — i.e. for more public subsidy of their lifestyle (a now well-known dodge, worthever huge amounts to countless thousands of professional spongers).

With over-population being the root cause of so much that negatively impacts Planet Earth, and thus needs to concern human society, the very last thing the world needs is to encourage excessive breeding.

True to form in the month or so leading up to the election we were inundated with flyers coming through our door extolling the virtues of all the hopeful candidates standing for election. Only one candidate actually called to our house (well at least the only one that did when we were in) asking for our vote. He started of by going on about a local issue that I happened to question the premise of. Instead of attempting to engage in any meaningful dialogue he apparently decided my vote was not worth the effort, muttered some platitudes and simply turned on his heels and left.

Well it turns out he did very well anyway without my support and was declared the winner.

Medway Council is run by the Conservatives. I’ve often been critical of them and the last thing I wanted to do was help vote another one of them in. Labour however make me wince on a daily basis and there was no chance I would have voted for them either. There was the Liberal Democrats candidate whose flyers consisted of lame criticisms of their opponents and very little substance. The BNP had a runner. Now if they had called to our door things would quickly have become heated. As it goes Mrs monaxle used the BNP flyer as a temporary ashtray. That left the Greens. Absolutely no hope of them winning but the only party I feel any affiliation to. That’s where my cross went along with 103 other local peoples choice.

My fears that they never stood a chance were pretty much confirmed on the day when I pitched up at the polling station and I noticed the amount of local people that felt the need to drive there!

In many ways I feel let down by the Greens. Though they are up against it there pitch for votes was very weak and failed to address the issues that are commonly talked about here and most other places. Anti social behaviour, litter, car parking etc… Though I believe the environment and climate is the most important issue to deal with in our times, after all where’s the point in anything if we end up destroying the world we live in, these issues have to be addressed via plausible argument and promised action that speaks to the interests of the majority. I think they failed miserably in doing this and so it seems did nearly everyone else that went out to vote.

What in the end really dismayed me though was that the BNP actually got more votes than they did! Here’s the results for anyone that may be interested –

All very well to be critical I know without standing up and getting involved myself. I guess that’s a luxury of people like me who choose to remain in the stands rather than getting down onto the field of play. Still we don’t get to be spectators for nothing and the price of the ticket seems to be getting higher all the time.

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2 Comments

I share your frustration on this. We had a local election here too and I felt unable to vote for any of the candidates as their pitches were either repellent or lame.

However, a friend stood as a Green in an adjacent ward. He fought a really good campaign, knocked on every door, and talked about a mix of local and global issues – and came second to the Tories by just 20 votes.

This is in Conservative-dominated Surrey, his near-success and the victory of an Independent nearby, a former Tory who fought on local environmental issues, give me hope that ‘alternative’ candidates win.